La Pupusera (The Pupusa-Making Woman)
Our story begins in a restaurant - a pupusería (pupusa shop) in San Salvador, to be specific - with three portly Latino men with stereotypically long moustaches finishing their meal of pupusas with a side of various greens. Their "waitress" - known to the residents of San Salvador as La Pupusera (who, unsurprisingly, has the Fuego Azul about her) - inquires about their meal: La Pupusera: ¿Les gustan mis pupusas, señores? (Do you like my pupusas, gentlemen?) All: ¡Sí! (Yes!) La Pupusera: Entonces, ¿me harán el favor de ayudarme en la cocina y hacer más? ¡España los necesita a Ustedes! (So, will you do me a favour and help me to make more in the kitchen? Spain needs you!) All: ¡Lo que Usted diga, señora! (Whatever you say, madam!) The scene pans out to Pupusería Esmeralda, which has a very conspicuous Spanish flag flying just outside. The viewer is then treated to a scene of El Presidente teleporting the party from Tenochtitlán town square to a spot which is a short but unobtrusive distance from the pupusería, and he alerts them to the danger posed by La Pupusera, to which they have mixed reactions. El Enigma suggests that Spain be dealt with swiftly, and that it should become a vassal state of Gran Colombia. La Bruja and El Tigre Azul show disgust at the presence of a Spanish flag on the grounds of the pupusería. Señor Blanco simply remains silent, his disgust plainly showing. In a show of solidarity (perhaps sincere, perhaps not), Dr. Mantis shows equal disgust in his visage. Noticing their disgust, El Enigma admonishes them: “We cannot show disgust!” Additionally noticing the strange, out-of-place smiles on the faces of the customers of the pupusería, El Enigma warns the party, “Do not come any closer! The over-joy does seem a bit strange.” Señor Blanco then offers to scout the building, and Dr. Mantis turns into La Pupusera in an attempt to tease out information from customers and others. Señor Blanco arrives just outside (and behind) the pupusería to find a very disturbing scene, indeed! Not only are there several guards with weapons inside, but also the customers have very unnatural smiles on their faces, as El Enigma noticed more vaguely from a distance. La Pupusera herself says to some departing customers, "Remember to have your pupusas before bed, and come back in the morning!" A disagreement ensues, but a subtle surveillance strategy is decided. Señor Blanco returns (with Dr. Mantis covertly in tow) and informs the party that the customers and the soldiers guarding the pupusería are all brainwashed, and that the pupusería would therefore be easy to storm from the back. However, El Enigma adopts a more cautious approach, suggesting that their aims would be better served by following some customers home and interrogating them - Señor Blanco and El Tigre Azul will be the muscle enforcing the interrogation, El Enigma herself will be the inquisitor, La Bruja will levitate the pupusas from the house in question, and Dr. Mantis will experiment with the Fuego-induced pupusas in an attempt to learn their secrets. They agree to covertly follow a family - a man, his wife, a 10 year old boy, and a 6 year old girl - who are seen leaving the pupusería. The party discreetly arrive near the family's home - a tribal-looking, earth-toned, one-storey house made of material similar to adobe - and a stratagem is hotly debated among the party. Señor Blanco suggests to El Tigre Azul that he might break through the back wall in order to help the party take the unwitting family by surprise. However, El Enigma resists that suggestion: "We must not destroy Gran Colombian property under any circumstances!" La Bruja nonchalantly responds: "The property is ugly and should be destroyed!" Meanwhile, El Tigre Azul impatiently asks, "Am I smashing the wall or not?", to which El Enigma replies, "Wait," and suggests that they adhere to the original plan, with one change - Dr. Mantis agrees to transform into an indigenous bird and fly above the house as a lookout. The party agree, and Señor Blanco wastes no time sneaking around the back (and he in fact goes back in time to see the family put the pupusas in the larder), to which El Enigma responds,"The rest of us get down to business." El Enigma, El Tigre Azul, and La Bruja go round to the front, while Dr. Mantis transforms into an American darter and flies above the house as a lookout. Trouble ensues from the moment contact is established. El Enigma knocks on the door, and the wife dutifully answers, "¡Un momento!" while coming to the door. As the wife opens the door, she asks, "¿Sí?" With her usual courteous charm, El Enigma greets the wife with, "Good day, good mistress. My associates and I are here to investigate possible changes in allegiance from Gran Colombia to Spain among the local citizens. Would you mind answering a few questions?" Immediately suspicious and incensed, the wife defensively answers, "¡Viva España!" as she slams the door in El Enigma's face. Not to be deterred by a door, El Tigre Azul forces the door open as El Enigma declares, "We are the Gran Colombian Inquisition!" To reinforce the point, El Tigre Azul stoops over to the children and says in a quasi-paternal tone, "Now now, let's not be too hasty!" The 10 year old boy and the 6 year old girl seem to be duly impressed, exclaiming, "¡Ay! ¡Un luchador!" El Tigre Azul capitalises on their apparent awe and fear by declaring, "If you don't mind, we're going to have a little discussion with your padres." The awe, however, doesn't last - El Tigre Azul barely manages to escape the 10 year old boy's attempt to bite his Achilles' heel. Unimpressed with the boy's attempt, El Tigre Azul attempts to chastise the boy by declaring, "Only mules bite!" Undeterred, the boy retorts, "Maybe I am a mulo!" Señor Blanco seems to be having better luck on his end. He sneaks around to the back of the house undetected, sneaks into the larder, takes the dozen pupusas the family just bought, and exits the house unobtrusively. Meanwhile, things seem to be going badly for our heroes in the front of the house; however, they manage to change their fortunes soon enough. The husband puts a pistol to El Tigre Azul's head, angrily challenging him with "Give me onen good reason why I shouldn't pull the trigger, Gran Colombian!" Thinking quickly, however, El Tigre Azul swoops down and lifts the children in the air, mockingly asking them, "Shall we go for a ride?", effectively creating a stalemate. The stalemate soon breaks when the 6 year old girl bites El Tigre Azul in his armpit; El Tigre Azul is heard crying out an extremely pained, "¡Ayyyyyy!" Seeing that the situation could easily get out of hand, El Enigma flares up, echoing: "Enough of this! You will be branded traidores to your country if you continue!" This is enough to intimidate the whole family - the wife is catatonic, the husband starts giving off a faecal smell, the 10 year old boy gives off a urine smell, and the 6 year old girl faints. Just as the situation seems to be in hand, however, an unexpected event occurs. The husband drops his pistola, which cracks off, sending a bullet straight into El Enigma's left leg! Just in the nick of time, Dr. Mantis flies into the house as an American darter and flaps at the husband and wife as reinforcement of their compliance. He soon changes back into his normal self, extracting information from the husband and wife; they divulge to him that they have been eating at the pupusería for years but that they have only acquired feelings of loyalty toward Spain in the past week. Seeming shocked, Dr. Mantis exclaims, "¡Ay ay ay!" He looks around in the larder and the kitchen for any sign of the pupusas, but he finds none (unbeknownst to him, Señor Blanco has already sneaked them out), so he fixes himself a snack (bread and queso blanco, to be precise) in the well-stocked kitchen, after which he returns to the living room and says, "Guys, I think the next clue's in the bank," to which the already-suspicious Señor Blanco replies, "You and your banks! All you think about is money!" Señor Blanco then asks, "Where are we going?" El Tigre Azul replies, "Where are we going? To the pupusería, of course!" The wife hastily adds, "Wait! We will take you to the pupusería. You'll be customers." Dr. Mantis asks the wife, "Where is the treasure buried?", to which she offers a blank stare of incomprehension. Discerning that the family have no treasure of which to speak, he simply proceeds to heal El Enigma's leg wound, including excising the bullet from her leg. The plans are made with haste when La Bruja senses the Fuego Azul around the pupusas. El Enigma outlines two options: 1) they can attempt to raid the pupusería, which will likely go awry; or 2) they can find a way to approach other people who can replace the mind control Fuego Azul with another mind control Fuego Azul which restores the people's loyalty to Gran Colombia. The following dialogue ensues: La Bruja: Are you sure? Señor Blanco: What do you suggest? El Enigma: We have agents. La Bruja: Not a good plan! El Enigma: We can imbue the pupusas with a different kind of Fuego Azul. Señor Blanco: How do we distribute them? La Bruja: We ambush the cook, get him to make more pupusas, and we change them to mind-control pupusas with Gran Colombian loyalty. Dr. Mantis: Why not go after La Pupusera herself? The party agree to Dr. Mantis' suggestion. They wait until the pupusería is closed, and then Dr. Mantis greets his minion with "How are you, Cristo?" before sending him off on a mission to capture and teleport La Pupusera to a beach house in the coastal area of San Salvador. Cristo teleports La Pupusera and the party to said beach house, at which point La Pupusera is interrogated and the party attempt to coerce her into giving up the secrets of her mind-control pupusas. The following heated dialogue ensues: La Pupusera: I know you - you'll never get away with this! Dr. Mantis: Where is the treasure? La Pupusera: Are you some kind of ''idiota?'' El Enigma (looking somewhat dismayed): He is, to be fair. Señor Blanco (with a pistol pointed at La Pupusera's head): You are going to answer some questions! El Enigma (sitting in a chair across from the kidnapped Pupusera): You will be tried. (In the background, Dr. Mantis lights some incense as an ironic gesture. Meanwhile, El Tigre Azul is seen pinning La Pupusera's arms down.) La Pupusera: Kill me! I will not give away the secret of my pupusas! Dr. Mantis and El Enigma try to dissuade her from her stubbornness with clever rhetoric (laced with implicit threats), but to no avail. It's only when Señor Blanco grabs her head, slams her against the desk, and leaves La Bruja to levitate her that her will finally weakens. El Enigma and Dr. Mantis are more successful at persuading La Pupusera to reveal her secrets after this. She confesses that Spanish agents have approached her and bribed her with Spanish pesetas made from pure gold. Hearing this but scarcely believing it, El Enigma adopts a soothing tone and says, "Do you honestly believe that Spain has more gold than Gran Colombia? Gran Colombia has the gold of the Aztecs!" Feeling somewhat sheepish although sure of what she was offered, La Pupusera replies, "They showed me much gold!" Keen to persuade her to the contrary, El Enigma says, "Napoleon took the gold. There's no way they have more than us." Finally persuaded to choose the right side, La Pupusera declares, "No more España for me!" Dr. Mantis offers to cook the pupusas in place of one of the cooks. Unconvinced, however, El Enigma asks him, "How do you think you can cook the pupusas?" La Pupusera declares, "I'll teach him!" Satisfied for the moment, El Enigma tells both La Pupusera and Dr. Mantis, "Make many pupusas imbued with loyalty to Gran Colombia." Both agree to do so, and La Pupusera additionally agrees to feed her guards and cooks first. The party agree to teleport to the pupusería in the morning with La Pupusera, Dr. Mantis, and Cristo. They all sleep in the beach house for the night. The next morning, the party and La Pupusera place their bold plan into action. La Pupusera relieves one of the cooks, telling him he isn't needed today; at this point she teaches Dr. Mantis how to make pupusas, and he feigns interest as he learns the trade. La Bruja levitates above the pupusería as a lookout guarding the general area, while Señor Blanco and El Tigre Azul wait across the street nonchalantly (El Tigre Azul is in fact engaged in his morning exercises). As the doors open, La Pupusera smiles at her customers, takes their money and orders, and then cheerfully says, "Here you go, to keep your loyalty going!" After taking a few bites, however, the customers see the errors of their ways. One declares, "We're traidores! Yesterday, I loved Spain. I hate Spain!" At that, the customers take down the Spanish flag, burn it, and replace it with the proud Gran Colombian flag, which is flying high above the pupusería for all to see. The transition, unfortunately, is not as smooth as was hoped. Señor Blanco unsuccessfully tries to persuade the 20 freshly arrived customers to come in and eat the pupusas regardless of the flag situation. When persuasion doesn't work, Señor Blanco yells, "El Tigre! Hold them down while I force feed them!" El Tigre Azul gets 4 customers in a head-lock, and Señor Blanco force-feeds them the pupusas until they ask themselves, "What are we doing?" Señor Blanco addresses them: "Citizens! Help us to feed them. Show them the wonders of our pupusas!" Seeing that his work is done (or so he believes), Dr. Mantis decides to leave, saying, "Good luck, guys! I'll be back in a while." Inspired by Señor Blanco's example, El Enigma appears as La Pupusera herself and addresses the oncoming crowd of 36 customers: "Come to me! I have the pupusas you desire! Come to fight for España!" She even creates the scent of pupusas as she signals to her allies, "Get the pupusas." El Enigma manages to convince only half of the 36 customers to eat the modified pupusas, but that's enough. They ask themselves and one another, "What are we doing, fighting for España?" La Bruja levitates the remaining 18 pupusas into the remaining 18 customers' mouths. Slowly but surely, the hearts and minds of the residents of San Salvador are brought back to their beloved Gran Colombia. Nonetheless, La Bruja urges people to keep eating the pupusas every 8 hours for at least a day to make sure they have no trace of Spanish loyalty left. Unfortunately, the 8 hours of Gran Colombian loyalty wear off on 5 of the guards who were sent directly from Spain. They teleport back to King Felipe VI in the Palacio Real and immediately declare to him, "We have failed!" Dismayed but not altogether surprised, King Felipe VI replies, "We need to use other strategies!" The final scene is one of Dr. Mantis and his minion Cristo teleporting to the Palacio Real... THE END?